Focused+Freewrite

Here is where you can post short passages and an accompanying question to serve as the source for a Focused Freewrite (Anderson p.31-32). Be sure to include a topic for the focused freewrite.

Example:

Topic: School Worries

"At high school I was never comfortable for a minute. I did not know about Lonnie. Before an exam, she got icy hands and palpitations, but I was close to despair at all times. When I asked a question in class, any simple little question at all, my voice was apt to come out squeaky or else hoarse and trembling. My hands became slippery with sweat when they were required to work the blackboard compass. I could not hit the ball in volleyball; being called upon to perform an action in from of other made all my reflexes come undone. I hated Business Practice because you had to rule pages for an account book, using a straight pen, and when the teacher looked over my shoulder all the delicate lines wobbled and ran together. I hated Science; we perched on stools under harsh lights behind tables of unfamiliar, fragile equipment and were taught by the principal of the school, a man with a cold, self-relishing voice-- he read the Scriptures every morning--and a great talent for inflicting humiliation. I hated English because the boys played bingo at the back of the room while the teacher, a stout, gentle girl, slightly cross-eyed, read Wordsworth at the front. She threatened them, she begged them, her face red and her voice as unreliable as mine. They offered burlesqued apologies and when she started to read again, they took up rapt postures, made swooning faces, crossed their eyes, flung their hands over their hearts. Sometimes she would burst into tears, there was no help for it, she had to run out into the hall. The boys made loud mooing noises; our hungry laughter--oh, mine too--pursued her. There was a carnival atmosphere of brutality in the room at such times, scaring weak and suspect people like me." - Excerpt from Alice Munro's "Red Dress"

Shabana -

Topic: Fitting in. Excerpt: “I know I'm not an ordinary ten-year-old kid. I mean, sure, I do ordinary things. I eat ice cream. I ride my bike. I play ball. I have an XBox. Stuff like that makes me ordinary. I guess. And I feel ordinary. Inside. But I know ordinary kids don't make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. I know ordinary kids don't get stared at wherever they go.”  "If I found a magic lamp and I could have one wish, I would wish that I had a normal face that no one ever noticed at all. I would wish that I could walk down the street without people seeing me and then doing that look-away thing. Here's what I think: the only reason I'm not ordinary is that no one else sees me that way." - Wonder by R.J. Palacio Focused Question: Have you ever felt out of place? Have you ever wanted to fit in? What does it mean to fit in? Who decides if you belong? Why is this? Discuss.

(Ravendra Persaud) Topic: Insecurity

“The thing is, it's really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs--if yours are really good ones and theirs aren't. You think if they're intelligent and all, the other person, and have a good sense of humor, that they don't give a damn whose suitcases are better, but they do. They really do.”

-Excerpt from The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Chapter 15

Question: We discussed symbolism in our previous lesson and how certain objects in a story can come to represent larger ideas. What do you think the suitcase represents? Do you agree with Holden's conclusion that suitcases matter? If so how? If not, why not? Give an example from your own life to support your position.

(Emily Gutierrez) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Forgiveness

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">"I looked at the photo. Your father was a man torn between halves, Rahim Khan had said in his letter. I had been the entitled half, the society-approved, legitimate half, the unwitting embodiment of Baba's guilt. I looked at Hassan, showing those two missing front teeth, sunlight slanting on his face. Baba's other half. The unentitled, unprivileged half. The half who had inherited what had been pure and noble in Baba. The half that, maybe, in the most secret recesses of my heart, Baba had thought of as his true son.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">I slipped the picture back where I had found it. Then I realized something: That last thought had brought no sting with it. Closing Sohrab's door, I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night." Excerpt from The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, pag 359.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Question: Consider how forgiveness functions in this passage. Who is Amir ultimately forgiving in this passage - himself or Baba? What shocks Amir most about his forgiveness, and how does this idea play into the larger themes of atonement in the book? Was there ever a time you forgave someone without ever realizing you were making the conscious decision to do so?

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">(Leigh Scott) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Choices

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">"But now I can see colors, at least sometimes, I was just thinking: what if we could hold up things that were bright red, or bright yellow, and he could choose? Instead of the Sameness."

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">"He might make the wrong choices."

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">"Oh." Jonas was silent for a minute. "Oh, I see what you mean. It wouldn't matter for a newchild's toy. But later it does matter, doesn't it? We don't dare let people make choices on their own."

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">"Not safe?" The Giver suggested

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">"Definitely not safe.,"Jonas said with certainty. "What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And chose wrong?"

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">... "Very frightening. I can't even imagine it. We really have to protect people from wrong choices."

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">"It's safer."

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">" Yes," Jonas agreed. "Much safer."

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">But when the conversation turned to other things, Jonas was left, still, with a feeling of frustration that he didn't understand. - Excerpt from The Giver by Lowis Lowry, pages 98-99

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Question: Why do you think Jonas continued to be frustrated by this discussion? How do you think he will influence his community in the future based on this conversation? Do you think people having free choice is important and worth the risks that these choices could bring? Explain why or why not?

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">(Sarah Laraichi) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Future <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">“Francois Rabelais. He was a poet. And his last words were "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." That's why I'm going. So I don't have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.” <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">And that quieted them. I was after a Great Perhaps, and they knew as well as I did that I wasn't going to be find it with likes of Will and Marie. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Excerpt from Looking for Alaska by John Green, pages 5

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Question: What does Miles mean by the Great Perhaps? Does he find it? How do you know? <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">What is your "Great Perhaps"?

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">(Heather Larocchia)

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Freedom <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Excerpt: From Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming, pages 72-73:

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">“Because we have a right, my grandfather tells us – <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">we are sitting at his feet and the story tonight is

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">why people are marching all over the South –

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">to walk and sit and dream wherever we want.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">First they brought us here. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Then we worked for free. Then it was 1863, <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">and we were supposed to be free but we weren’t.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">And that’s why people are so mad.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">And it’s true, we can’t turn on the radio <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">without hearing about the marching.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">We can’t go to downtown Greenville without <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">seeing the teenagers walking into stores, sitting <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">where brown people still aren’t allowed to sit <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">and getting carried out, their bodies limp, <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">their faces calm.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">This is the way brown people have to fight, <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">my grandfather says. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">You can’t just put your fist up. You have to insist <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">on something <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">gently. Walk toward a thing <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">slowly.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">But be ready to die, <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">my grandfather says, <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">for what is right.”

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Possible Questions: <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">1. Grandfather says, “we were supposed to be free but we weren’t.” What does he mean by this? What is freedom? <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">2. Are all people free today? <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">3. How do people fight “gently?” <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">4. How might we fight for freedom today? <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">5. Would you risk your life for freedom?

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">(Betty Trevino Roth)

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Innocent vs. Not Guilty

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">“The prosecutor said I was lying. I wanted to ask her what she expected me to do when telling the truth was going to get me 10 years.” - Excerpt from Monster by Walter Dean Myers, Chapter 18, line 86

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Question: We've discussed that choice, responsibility and consequences are themes of this story. In what we've read so far of his journal, Steve says that he is innocent. Is this an admission of guilt? What "truth" is he talking about here? Is Steve innocent or just “not guilty”? What do you think is the difference between the two?

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Justified Violence

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">"I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that, and tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? ... Shall I respect man when he condemns me? Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness, and instead of injury I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance. But that cannot be; the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union. Yet mine shall not be the submission of abject slavery. I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my arch-enemy, because my creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred. Have a care; I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your heart, so that you shall curse the hour of your birth." - Excerpt from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Question: Think about this passage and what it is revealing about the Monster. How can being miserable lead to malicious behavior? Write about something you've done, experienced, or witnessed that may relate to this idea of justified violence.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">(Leila Nabizadeh) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Ignorance vs. Knowledge

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">"I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which I am acquainted; that cannot be: listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that subject. I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow." <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's, Frankenstein, Vol. I, Ch. IV, pg. 54

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Question: In this passage Victor switches from first person to second person and addresses us, as the readers. What is message is Victor trying to convey to us? Do you agree or disagree that people are happier when they are ignorant to the realities of the world? Why or why not? How can having a certain type of knowledge lead to dangerous consequences?

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">(Elizabeth R. Miller-Mosher) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Socioeconomic Unfairness

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">- Excerpt from Terry Pratchett's Men At Arms

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Question: In this passage, Terry Pratchett uses one of his characters to analyze the discrepancy between the rich and the poor in an urban city environment. Starting from this specific idea of socioeconomic unfairness, how can we apply this idea to our own understanding of the different socioeconomic classes in our society? Use examples from your own experience, be it personal or observed, to help you support your response.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">(Morgan Werner) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Defining Moments in Our lives

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">From Ellie Wiesel's Night

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Question: What does the author mean when he says that the flames "consumed his faith?" Recall a moment in your life that made you question your faith or something that you believe in.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Katie Boudreau <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Equality in the Justice System

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Excerpt: <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal, a phrase that the government is fond of hurling at us. There is a tendency in this year of grace, 1935, for certain people to use that phrase out of context, to satisfy all conditions. We know that all men are not created equal in the sense that some people would have us believe. Some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they are born with it, some men have more money than others, and some people are more gifted than others. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal. An institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the ignorant man the equal of any president, and the stupid man the equal of Einstein. That institution is the court. But a court is only as sound as its jury, and the jury is only as sound as the men who make it up. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore the defendant to his family. In the name of God, do your duty. In the name of God, gentlemen, believe Tom Robinson.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Question: This is part of the speech that Atticus Finch gives the jury in To Kill a Mockingbird. What is Atticus saying about equality in this excerpt? From the news or your own experience, do you think there is equality in the justice system? Why or why not?

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Arianne Beros <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: The Dangers of Effecting Change

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Excerpt <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">My father is no Martin Luther King. He's old and set in his ways, or in ways that have been set for him. I'm pretty sure a bomb on our front porch would send him running to Alaska, not to the NAACP office to become a freedom fighter. <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Daddy has met Rev. King a couple of times at church-related activities. I know he admires Dr. King for the work he's doing in Alabama, but I'm glad my father comes home every night and we don't get bombs tossed on our porch. It's bad enough I get brothers tossed at our front door.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">From Sharon M. Draper's Fire from the Rock

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Questions: Influencing a major change in society often requires taking action that puts oneself and one's family in danger. What is more important, the safety of yourself and your family, or the safety of society overall? Can you truly have one without the other? How do we make decisions about when to take risks and when to play it safe?

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Felicia Mgbada

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Hidden Secret <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Excerpt:“The YOUNGER living room would be a comfortable and well-ordered room if it were not for a number of indestructible contradictions to this state of being. Its furnishings are typical and undistinguished and their primary feature now is that they have clearly had to accommodate the living of too many people for too many years and they are tired. Still, we can see that at some time, a time probably no longer remembered by the family {except perhaps for MAMA), the furnishings of this room were actually selected with care and love and even hope and brought to this apartment and arranged with taste and pride.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">That was a long time ago. Now the once loved pattern has to fight to show itself from under acres of crocheted doilies and couch covers which have themselves finally come to be more important than the upholstery. And here a table or a chair has been moved to disguise the worn places in the carpet; but the carpet has fought back by showing its weariness, with depressing uniformity, elsewhere on its surface.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Weariness has, in fact, won in this room. Everything has been polished, washed, sat on, used, scrubbed too often. All pretenses but living itself have long since vanished from the very atmosphere of this room.”

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">-Except from Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun” <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Question: Writers include detailed descriptions for various reasons, do you think the Younger’s furnishings and carpet represent or symbolize something else. What do they symbolize? Why did the author give such detailed description of the living space before the play begins?

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Stephanie Sarno <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Reputation

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Excerpt: <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">“...we should be remembered for the things we do. The things we do are the most important things of all. The things we do outlast our mortality. The things we do are like monuments that people build to honor heroes after they've died. They're like the pyramids that the Egyptians built to honor the pharaohs. Only instead of being made of stone, they're made out of the memories people have of you. That's why your deeds are like monuments. Built with memories instead of stone.”

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">-From R.J. Palacio's Wonder

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Question: Think about the author’s comparison of monuments and memories. Speak of a time when your actions affected someone’s memory of you. What happened, and how did your behaviors or actions at this time impact your reputation?

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">John Neiro <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Empathy, Difference and Isolation

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Excerpt: <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">"But (Margot) remembered and stood quietly apart from all of them and watched the patterning windows. And once, a month ago, she had refused to shower in the school shower rooms, had clutched her hands to her ears and over her head, screaming the water mustn’t touch her head. So after that, dimly, dimly, she sensed it, she was different and they knew her difference and kept away. There was talk that her father and mother were taking her back to Earth next year; it seemed vital to her that they do so, though it would mean the loss of thousands of dollars to her family. And so, the children hated her for all these reasons of big and little consequence. They hated her pale snow face, her waiting silence, her thinness, and her possible future." <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">- From Ray Bradbury's All Summer in a Day

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Question: Pay careful attention to the author's description of main character Margot's isolation from the rest of her classmates. Then think of a time when you might have felt lonely and/or different from everyone else around you (i.e., peers, siblings, etc.). What were the circumstances? Because of that experience, do you empathize with people like Margot? Write a full paragraph in which you reflect on this experience.

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Vanna Marmo

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Societal Expectations

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">“Look what can happen in this country, they’d say. A girl lives in some out-of-the-way town for nineteen years, so poor she can’t afford a magazine, and then she gets a scholarship to college and wins a prize here and a prize there and ends up steering New York like her own private car. Only I wasn’t steering anything, not even myself. I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolleybus. I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn’t get myself to react. I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.” – Excerpt from The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Question: What societal expectations do you face? Is there a disconnect between societal and personal expectations? If so, what external forces and societal pressures affect you? How can you reconcile the two?

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Sahina Jerome

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Individuality, Conformity, Pressure

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">“I'm partly somebody else trying to fit in and say the right things and do the right thing and be in the right place and wear what everybody else is wearing. Sometimes I think we're all trying to be shadows of each other, trying to buy the same records and everything even if we don't like them. Kids are like robots, off an assembly line, and I don't want to be a robot!” - Excerpt from Go Ask Alice by Beatrice Sparks

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Question: Is there a healthy middle between individuality and conformity? Have you ever been pressured to follow the crowd? How is the conflict between individuality and conformity for teens in 2014 similar or different to the 1970s? Does conformity or individuality hurt a culture?

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Amanda LoStimolo <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Identity

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">"I walk into my room, and when I close the door behind me, I realize the the decision might be simple. It will require a great act of selflessness to choose Abegnation, or a great deal of courage to choose Dauntless, and maybe just choosing one overt he other will prove that I belong. Tomorrow, those qualities will struggle within me, and only one can win." -- Excerpt from Divergent by Veronica Roth

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Question: Do our decisions shape our identity? How so? Have you made a decision that you felt defined you as a person? What was that like? What future decisions might help shape our identities? Why?

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Jessica Bouret <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Identity <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">“She looks at you like you’re crazy. Boston isn’t racist, she says. She also scoffs at the idea of racism in Santo Domingo. So Dominicans love Haitians now? That’s not about race. That’s about nationality. At the end of the semester she returns home. My home, not your home, she says tetchily. She’s always trying to prove you’re not Dominican. If I’m not Dominican then no one is, you shoot back, but she laughs at that. Say that in Spanish, she challenges and of course you can’t.” <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">This is How You Lose Her by Junot diaz (197) <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Focused questions: Born in Dominican Republic and now living in America, how do you think the character identifies himself? How is this different from how others see him? <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Nicole Wong **


 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Topic: Sacrifice **

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">"Sacrifice", the captain said. "You made one. I made one. We all make them. But you were angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost. You didn’t get it. Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to. Little sacrifices. Big sacrifices. A mother works so her son can go to school. A daughter moves home to take care of her sick father. I didn’t die for nothing, either. That night, we might have all driven over that land mine. Then the four of us would have been gone. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Eddie shook his head. “but you…you lost your life.” <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">The captain smacked his tongue on his teeth. “That’s the thing. Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you’re not really losing it. You’re just passing it on to someone else.” -pg 93
 * <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Passage: **

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Excerpt from //The// //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"> Five People You Meet in Heaven //<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;">by Mitch Albom

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; line-height: 0px;">Focused Question: Eddie does not feel that the Captain's sacrifice was worth making? What argument is the Captain providing to combat Eddie's

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; line-height: 0px;">opinion? Do you feel that Eddie will change his mind? Explain.